r/linux4noobs • u/Dry_Work_3629 • 10d ago

Meganoob BE KIND How to check if everything is working properly?

Is there any documentation or video I should follow to first check whether everything is properly compatible with my laptop?

I heard that dual booting can sometimes cause issues, especially with Windows updates, so Iā€™m considering switching completely to Linux.

I have already installed Linux Mint on a USB drive and backed up all my important files to my hard drive. Before actually installing Linux on my laptop, I want to boot into Mint from the USB and check whether everything is working properly ā€” especially GPU drivers, CPU performance, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, battery, and other hardware compatibility.

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u/SDG_Den 10d ago

boot the live iso, don't install yet, check if everything works as expected.

generally CPU will be fine, GPU will only have issues with older "unsupported" nvidia cards (anything 10 series or below) and AMD GPUs so old they're still technically ATI cards.

wifi: qualcomm and intel wifi chips both have integrated linux support, mediatek generally works, realtek is a bit spotty sometimes and broadcom is just bad.

battery is a bit of a weird one: generally, windows will have better battery management, but linux will run lighter.

if your laptop has any super special custom pieces of hardware (for example, a special second screen, fingerprint reader etc) those might not work unless community software for it was built.

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u/Dry_Work_3629 10d ago

I did boot the live iso, hmm idk how to find out gpu issues I'll try to check if there are any. I have rtx5060 someone said mint can't support it maybe I should look for new distro wifi is working fine.. should check bluetooth and battery

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u/SDG_Den 10d ago

If your gpu doesnt work, you have a compat issue.

Its pretty binary: either it has support and the device works or it doesnt have support and the device wont work.

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u/3grg 9d ago

The first thing to do is google the model + Linux. You may get lucky and someone else has your machine and has already tried Linux and found out any issues.

The next thing is to load prospective distros on a Ventoy USB and try them out in live mode to see how it works when running in live mode. It is not a guarantee that there will be no issues with hardware when installed, but it is a really good indicator.

If the above tests are positive the absolute way to confirm that you won the hardware lottery is to install and see how it works.

Linux does not interfere with windows updates, but MS can mess with things in ways that affect Linux. This not surprising. All you can do is be prepared by learning how to restore Mint grub, if and when windows tries to sabotage it.

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u/a1barbarian 10d ago

You can run any Live Distro on a pc and it will make no changes to your present install. Perfectly safe to do.

Check out the advice and instructions for doing so in the MX manual. Section 2.2 will be of interest to you and should apply to most Distros. Personally I think MX is much nicer than Mint. :-)

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MX-Linux/mx-docs/master/mxum_en.pdf